Newsletter

Fort Stewart soldiers continue to move into Afghanistan

Corey Dickstein/Savannah Morning News The Fort Stewart-based 92nd Engineer Battalion's leadership team of Lt. Col. Kenneth Boggs, left, and Command Sgt. Maj. Andrew Lonning rolls up and case the unit colors Thursday morning at the installation's parade grounds. The ceremonial action signify's the unit's readiness to move into a new theatre of operations.

Corey Dickstein/Savannah Morning News Army Lt. Col. Kenneth Boggs, commander of the Afghanistan-bound 92nd Engineer Battalion from Fort Stewart, gets hugs from his children Cole, 2, and Bella, 4, before casing the colors at Cottrell Field Thursday morning. Boggs and five of his battalion's companies will deploy to southern Afghanistan within the next week.

As the U.S. military continues to draw down the number of its troops in Afghanistan, Fort Stewart soldiers are making final preparations to deploy.

While hundreds of the installation’s soldiers gathered Thursday morning to case their unit’s colors, Pentagon officials announced 2,200 additional Fort Stewart soldiers would also deploy to Afghanistan later this month.

By next week five of the 92nd Engineer Battalion’s subordinate companies will have arrived in southern Afghanistan where they will join more than 5,000 3rd Infantry Division troops already operating in the International Security Assistance Forces Regional Command-South.

There the unit will begin a nine-month mission retrograding equipment and removing much of the infrastructure the U.S. has built up within the country during more than a decade of fighting.

It’s a different mission for the unit that since 2001 has deployed twice to Afghanistan and three times to Iraq, primarily to improve the country’s infrastructure and enhance security and living quarters for their fellow troops.

Black Diamond soldiers — as the 92nd Engineers are known — will completely tear down many of the operating bases throughout the region; other posts will be reorganized for use by the Afghan National Security Forces, said Lt. Col. Kenneth Boggs, the battalion’s commander.

“In some cases the (bases) will get taken all the way back to dirt — to what it was before we’d even thought of establishing a base to begin with,” Boggs said. “In other cases we’ll reduce it to something (Afghan) forces can use in addition to their own infrastructure that they’ve got throughout the country.”

For more than 10 months, the Black Diamond soldiers have prepared for their unusual mission.

That training, that culminated in a monthlong rotation at the National Training Center at Fort Irwin, Calif., Boggs said, went well.

“The opportunity to take the battalion, get set, build our power, do the mission and get home was just — I am so confident in our abilities now just because of that one rotation,” he said.

By June, the battalion’s sixth company, the 530th Engineer Company, will deploy, just more than a year after it returned from a 12-month Afghanistan deployment in March 2012.

Like the 92nd Engineers, the 3rd ID’s light infantry brigade has been preparing for a nine-month deployment to Afghanistan since last summer.

The 4th Infantry Brigade Combat Team will deploy for the first time in support of Operation Enduring Freedom since it was established in May 2004. It’s previously deployed three times to Iraq, returning most recently in July 2011.

The brigade’s commander, Col. Kimo Gallahue, will deploy more than 2,000 soldiers to ISAF’s Regional Command-East, where they will be responsible for supporting and training Afghan soldiers as the U.S. prepares them to take over combat operations by the end of next year.

“The soldiers of the Vanguard Brigade are highly motivated, incredibly well trained and look forward to this opportunity to serve our nation and assist the Afghan people,” Gallahue said. “We’re proud to be a part of the team.”